After a series of elections debacles last year (including the races for USG Vice President and 2012 Class Senator), the USG promised that this would never happen again. A newfangled electronic voting system was supposed to iron out all the kinks and put an end to the frustration and anger caused by previous missteps. What the USG failed to account for, however, was human error, which has resulted in an invalid result in the recent election for the office of 2013 VP.
By no means do I wish to pin the blame on any single individual. Indeed, I find the USG’s repeated pattern of making a scapegoat out of whoever happens to be serving as elections manager to be nothing short of disgusting. People make mistakes. What is appalling to me is that no one caught this minor problem before it mushroomed into a major crisis. Why didn’t anyone at the USG find it odd that two freshmen who had gone to all the trouble of signing up to run for vice president hadn’t posted their candidate statements? In light of previous events, one would expect the USG to be actively engaged in troubleshooting. Instead, it seems as if they were content to carry in with business as usual.
It’s no wonder the USG’s reputation has suffered lately. As Princeton students, we ought to be capable of managing such simple tasks as holding an election. Voting is the most fundamental aspect of any democracy; if ballot counts cannot be trusted, neither can the government. If anyone should be resigning amidst this mess, it ought to be Connor Diemand-Yauman. Harry Truman’s famous motto, “the buck stops here,” would be a welcome change from the blame game that has become a fixture of the USG’s modus operandi.
Sam Norton is a junior from Falmouth, Maine. He is majoring in politics.